SONOMA, Calif. — While his teammate has taken off, Elliott Sadler is still trying to right his season.
His quest takes a left turn this weekend as Sadler hopes to ride the momentum earned from last week’s strong run into the first road course of the season Sunday at Infineon Raceway.
Sadler was ninth last weekend in Michigan, just his third top-10 finish of 2008. Kasey Kahne, his teammate at Gillett Evernham Motorsports, has won three races in the last five weeks.
“That was something this entire team needed,” Sadler said of the Michigan run. “I needed to put together an entire race, the team needed to see its hard work in the shop pay off on the track and we needed to show that Gillett Evernham is getting better and better all around.”
Although Sadler has had success in Sonoma — he’s scored inside the top-10 in four out of his last six races there — he’s never finished higher than sixth. His No. 19 team recently participated in a test at Virginia International Raceway, where Sadler and team director Rodney Childers got a good feel for how they want the car this weekend.
Still, Sadler said the road-course race is one of the most daunting on the schedule.
“You get absolutely no breaks at that track. You are constantly thinking of what to do next, where and when to turn, what marks to hit and when to brake,” he said. “There are 12 turns there and you go from the left to right so many times all day it makes your head spin. You cannot have any mistakes through the turns or you end up off the course.”
LOOKING FOR PAYBACK: Jamie McMurray heads to Infineon Raceway this weekend looking for a little redemption.
A year ago, he started from the pole and led 30 laps, only to finish 37th when a late-race fuel gamble left him two laps short of gas at the end.
“Sonoma is a race that has been circled on my calendar all season long,” McMurray said. “Last year, I thought it was our race to win — we were so fast the entire day. When we took the fuel gamble late in the race, it was a big gamble that did not play out in our favor. I was so disappointed.”
McMurray has been consistent at Sonoma, finishing all but one of the 550 laps he’s raced there. He has an average qualifying position of 11.4 at Infineon, his best of all Sprint Cup tracks.
His best finish was second in 2004.
“Sonoma is one of my favorite tracks that we visit each year,” he said. “Last year was so much fun after we won the pole, and then to run as well as we did, it was great. This weekend we have to focus on making sure the car is balanced throughout the course, make sure our brake package is where it needs to be and finally, we need to have good pit strategy.
“If we can make all of that happen, I think we’ll have a great weekend.”
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES: Aric Almirola was seemingly en route to his first NASCAR victory one year ago when the win was literally taken away from him.
A full year later, he’s in the big leagues and not looking at what might have been in the Nationwide Series race at Milwaukee. Instead, Almirola is focused on making his first road-course start in the Sprint Cup Series.
“I’m not going to sugar coat the degree of difficulty — it’s going to be a tough race,” Almirola said.
Almirola will be racing for the first time in nearly two months this weekend when he takes over for Mark Martin in the No. 8 Chevrolet at Infineon Raceway. The two are sharing the ride this season.
Almirola’s only other NASCAR experience on a road course was last summer in the Nationwide race in Montreal, where he drove a Joe Gibbs Racing car to an 11th-place finish. It was one of his final races for JGR, which let Almirola leave after an ugly incident at Milwaukee when he was forced to get out of the car midway through the race.
Denny Hamlin was scheduled to drive the car that day, but was late getting to the event from Sonoma. So Almirola started the race in his place and was leading when Hamlin finally arrived. Almirola was ordered out of the car and Hamlin drove it the rest of the way to the win.
He parted ways with JGR shortly after, was signed by Ginn Racing and then absorbed by Dale Earnhardt Inc. when that team bought out Ginn. Now he’s got 12 Cup races on his schedule as Martin’s co-driver. The two have combined to put the No. 8 Chevrolet 15th in owner points and Almirola doesn’t want to damage that this weekend.
“I just want to run a smart race and get as many owner points as I can for DEI and (sponsor) the Army,” said Almirola. “I have spent a lot of time preparing for this race.”
CHP PAINT SCHEME: The season-long quest by Yates Racing to fund Travis Kvapil’s car takes a local turn this weekend when the California Highway Patrol assumes primary sponsorship of the No. 28 Ford.
Kvapil’s paint scheme this weekend at Infineon Raceway will be similar to the CHP’s patrol cars.
“I think this is a very cool sponsorship for us this weekend,” Kvapil said. “The California Highway Patrol works to keep everyone in California safe and I’m honored that they chose to partner without No. 28 Yates Racing team this weekend at Sonoma.
“I’m really looking forward to making them proud, as well as the state of California proud.”
Kvapil is currently 18th in the Sprint Cup Series standings despite driving a car that has lacked full-time sponsorship all season.
STAT OF THE WEEK: Chevrolet leads all manufacturers in wins at Sonoma, with nine in 19 events. Jeff Gordon has won a record five of them, including five poles, the track qualifying record and nine top-five finishes in 15 starts.
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